"The original novel explores the idea of a heroic journey, updated for the modern world and well aware of itself. This story, featuring Troy's sister, Imogen, is the hero's journey squished into a concentrated narrative. It's Lord of the Rings without all the walking and The Epic of Gilgamesh without all the angst. In a thousand years will it still be told around campfires by the robots that inevitably destroy and replace us? Who can say?
(I can. Yes. Yes, it will be.)"
— Author's Notes
Imogen's Epic Day is a Comic Fantasy short story written by A. Lee Martinez and published in the 2013 anthology book Robots versus Slime Monsters. The story is set after the events of the novel Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest, where Troy's sister Imogen finds herself thrust into a quest of her own. Perhaps not as great as the quest her brother went on, but all quests bring their chosen to greatness in one for another.
Imogen's Epic Day provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Human:
- The delivery man who brings Imogen the MacGuffin that begins her quest is described as classically handsome in a lot of ways — flawlessly smooth skin, perfectly white teeth — but off in such a way that he looks more like rubber-hose toon than an actual person.
- Agent Campbell from the NQB somehow manages to vanish just as Safira the Ancient appears, only to reappear right after the threat has passed, as though she had magically worked her way in and out the narrative.
- Basilisk and Cockatrice: When Imogen refuses to give Safira the Water of Life willingly, she summons an amphisbaena who holds Virginia and Rick hostage. It's described as a two-headed Feathered Serpent with a venom that can kill anyone almost instantly, Virginia describing it as a "two-headed snake-chicken monster."
- MacGuffin: The Inciting Incident of the story is when Imogen receives a vase containing the inert Glory Bloom from an unusual delivery man. The Glory Bloom is allegedly the first flower to bloom and grants anyone who brings it to life with the Waters of Life ultimate power.
- No Man Should Have This Power: At the end of the story, Imogen finds that she still has a drop of the Water of Life left and she could attain ultimate power with the Glory Bloom with it. Instead, she wipes the drop on her jeans and thinks nothing of it. Judging by Agent Campbell's reaction, this is to be expected from a quest like her's.
- Shout-Out: When Imogen splashes Safira with the Waters of Life, she asks to know how she knew it would kill her. Imogen cites The Wizard of Oz as a reference. While Safira insists that she isn't a witch, nor is water an actual weakness for real witches, she still cries out "What a world! What a world!" as she crumbles into inert shards.
